


A Deal with the Devil

by Columbidae (Axolotl)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Kidnapping, Aziraphale Gets Tired Of Being Nice, Babies, Character Death, Co-Parenting, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Just Goes Ape Shit, M/M, Other, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axolotl/pseuds/Columbidae
Summary: Hell orders Crowley to tempt a woman into selling her first born son.  Unfortunately, the temptation works.  Now he and Aziraphale must hide the child, raising it in secret to protect it from its own destiny, and prevent Armaggedon.(or AU: Crowley and Aziraphale raise the Antichrist.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Temptation Accomplished

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my fanfic bullshit lads. First GO fic I've posted anywhere.

"Shit shit shit shit _fuck!_ "

Crowley's swearing was kept to a quiet hiss as he glanced at the box on the seat next to him. The Bentley passed through a red light, miraculously missing cars that came from both left and right. Despite his breakneck speed, the drive to the book shop never felt so long.

"Bullshit, absolute fucking bullshit." 

The Bentley had scarely come to a stop before he wrenched the door open. Both driver's and passenger's doors were slammed shut as he grabbed the box and rushed to the storefront of A. Z. Fell & Co.

He pounded on the door relentlessly. "C'mon Angel, c'mon c'mon c'mon..." It must have taken 20 knocks before he saw a familiar silhouette approach.

"Crowley? What on Earth--"

Crowley pushed past Aziraphale and pressed a finger to his lips, which was met with a slightly indignant look. His long legs took him to the back room in a few quick strides. Aziraphale, baffled, hurried after him.

"Crowley, it's two in the morning, what is--"

"Need your help." Crowley gingerly set the box on the couch before turning to the angel. "Look, you owe me a favor, right? If not, I'll owe you one."

Aziraphale looked between the box and the demon. He hadn't seen Crowley in weeks, and certainly hadn't been expecting him that night. The state his friend was in left him anxious. Nothing good ever came from Crowley needing a sudden favor, as their Arrangement had always proven to him. "Well, I-- What- what _is_ it, what do you need?"

"So..." Crowley took a deep breath and ran a hand through his shoulder lengh hair, trying to compose himself. Once he'd caught his breath, he held up two hands, almost placatingly. "Just one night, I need you to watch this, ok? Can't keep it at my flat. Hastur is coming by in an hour to follow up and collect on a temptation."

Aziraphale circled round his friend, cautiously approaching the box. Upon lifting the lid, he gasped. "Oh... Crowley..."

"Look, it's not what you think," Crowley rushed to explain.

"Whose child is this?" Aziraphale's hands hovered over the blanket-wrapped infant, almost afraid to touch its sleeping form.

"Right, I was getting to that. Some woman's. Stupid woman. Baby's better off without her. Probably."

Aziraphale gaped. "You _stole_ it?"

"No!" Crowley shouted, paused as the baby stirred, then continued in a hiss. "That's the thing! She just gave it to me!"

Aziraphale's mouth hung open. "What? Who? W-Why?"

"I'm getting to that, alright?" Crowley took a seat on Aziraphale's coffee table. The angel gave him a reproving look, but it lasted only a moment, distracted as he was by the sleeping child.

"So," Crowley began. "It's, what, a decade ago? Bit more? I'm given an assignment from downstairs. Usually they give me a little creative license, but this time they're looking for something specific. They want me to tempt a woman. Some real Grimm fairytale stuff. Wanted me to get a woman to sell me her first born."

Aziraphale frowned, taking a seat on the couch beside the child in his cardboard cradle. "Oh, Crowley..."

"Listen! Alright, anyway, I figure this is gonna be easy. No one goes around selling their kids anymore, right? I'll find someone probably infertile, get them something like- like eternal beauty or some shit, like the olden days, and they'll just end up owing us a soul or something." His shoulders sag. "But then I find this young woman, seems to be having a bad time, y'know. Bags under her eyes, couple premature grey hairs, looks one spilled coffee away from a public breakdown. I start talking to her. Well, she started talking to me. Dunno why, expect she was just holding it all in and let it out to the next available ear she could find. Find out her husband's on death's door, fourth stage cancer. She starts crying and I just..." He shrugged guiltily. "Found out she had no kids, they hadn't planned on having any... So I struck up a deal."

Aziraphale gave Crowley a look that was somewhere between repremanding and pitying. "You didn't..."

"I didn't expect her to actually pay up!" Crowley defended himself. "She said she never planned on having any, thought that meant they'd use protection, not..."

"And she sought you out? She didn't try to hide the infant?"

"Not... really. Hell found out about the birth, sent me down to collect." He looked almost sheepish for a moment, before rushing to defend himself again. "But she could have avoided it! I even had in the contract, if she never had a child the whole thing was null and void. But that was the best I could do, with Hell's lawyers needing to approve the document. Had to get them something out of it, couldn't go too easy on her, so I put... that if she did have a kid, and didn't hand it over, her soul was forfeit."

"I don't know where _that_ will end up, now..." Aziraphale clucked his tongue. "Selling your child to a demon makes it rather difficult to get Upstairs."

"She was scared, I get it." Crowley sighed. "But I tried to give her so many outs."

"And what of the child?"

"Well, that's why I'm here." Crowley removed his glasses, looking at Aziraphale with pleading yellow eyes. "Could you watch the kid for me? Just one night. Just until I've made up a good enough excuse to get Hastur off my back, then I can sort this all out."

Aziraphale hesitated. Just a few moments ago, he had been enjoying a nice, quiet night in, curled up with a good book, some Chopin providing the perfect backdrop to a relaxing evening. Now, his book lied on the floor where he'd dropped it, the record played only a soft rasp as it reached its end, his cocoa grew cold on his end table. And here Crowley had come, as he so often did, bringing chaos into his life. 

In the box, the baby stirred, before sighing softly and settling back into his blanket. He couldn't have been more than a month old. 

"What will you tell them?"

Crowley ran a hand over his face. "Dunno. Something about her... miscarrying or something. Or adopting it out? Hastur knows about the birth, but he doesn't know all the details."

"And what will you do with him afterward?" The angel stroked a gentle finger over the child's round cheek.

"Dunno..." Crowley looked miserably toward the box for a moment, seeming lost in thought, before shaking himself out of it and rising to his feet. "So? What do you say, angel?"

"Crowley, I-" Aziraphale wrung his hands nervously. "You know I'm not very good with children."

"You're an angel, of course you are! Filled with..." Crowley waved his hand vaguely. His glasses were returned to his face. "Love and warmth and all that. Babies love that stuff! Besides, he's sleeping!"

Aziraphale gave him a look. "And we all know how well infants sleep through the night."

"Angel." Crowley stood, taking his friend by the shoulders and leveling him a pleading look through tinted lenses. "One night. I'll be back for it as soon as I can, and I'll sort this whole mess out. Just..." He grimaced. "Don't make me say please."

"Oh..." Aziraphale gave a long suffering sigh, followed by a look that was meant to be more put-upon and far less fond than it actually was. "Alright. One night."

Crowley let out a relieved breath. "I'll owe you one! Promise!" he called as he made his way toward the door.

Aziraphale stood watching him leave. "Make it right, Crowley," he muttered to the shop's front door as it swung closed, then turned toward the box as its contents began to fuss.


	2. The End is Nigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting doesn't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are a bit short right now, but I wanted to get this updated in a timely manner. Lemme know if you guys would rather have short, quick chapter updates or wait a bit for longer ones!

Another frantic drive through London, and Crowley returned to find the door to his flat open.

"Shit," he mouthed. It was before the agreed upon meeting time, wasn't it? He glanced at his watch. It was not. He was, in fact, late by 15 minutes.

He gave himself another moment to get composed before quietly entering the flat. He let his usual saunter take over, hips swaying as he looked around corners for the dukes of Hell, looking as cool as possible. The facade was ruined the moment a voice behind him caused him to jump.

"You're late," croaked Hastur.

Crowley swung around. "Sorry, mates, traffic was hell." He grinned at his own joke. Hastur and Ligur did not. 

"Where is the child?" Ligur glared from somewhere by a tall yuka plant Crowley kept. Its leaves were shivering faintly.

"Child, right, yes," Crowley had tried to think of a convincing lie on the drive over, but only had the rough framework down. He'd have to fill in the blanks as he went. He was always good at improvisation. "... Gone."

"Gone?" Hastur sneered. Both dukes stared at Crowley with equal amounts disbelief and rage. "What do you mean, 'gone?'"

"Well," Crowley shrugged, doing his best to look disappointed. "Went down there to collect like you asked, and the baby was... gone."

"You've said that!" Ligur was making no attempt to reel in his frustration. The chameleon on his head turned a rather ugly shade of red. "Gone how? It can't just disappear."

Crowley's shoulders met his ears in a shrug. "Guess she didn't forget about our deal and tried to hide it. Adopted it out, in secret. Put her through the ringer, I did, but she wouldn't budge an inch or tell me where. But!" He spread his hands out dramatically. "Good news is, we got another soul, and very effectively. Now that's craftsmanship. Should try it again some ti--"

"We don't need her soul!" Hastur roared. Crowley flinched, eyebrows raising. "We need the child!"

"What's one child?" Crowley asked, genuinely thrown off kilter.

"Not just a child," Ligur stalked forward, encroaching on his space. " _The_ child."

"The child." Crowley frowned.

"That child didn't belong to her," Hastur said. "It was our Master's. _The_ child."

Understanding dawned on Crowley like a bucket of cold water. "No..."

"Yes."

"Now?"

" _Yes_ , now. It begins now, Crowley, and _you_ were the one tasked with this... task." Hastur poked Crowley in the chest. "One simple task, to ensure our victory in the great Battle. I don't think our Lord will enjoy hearing you've cocked it up!"

"I'll find it," Crowley blurted out, trying to think fast and still remain, outwardly, cool. "It can't be hard to track down. Humans have a record for everything these days."

"Why should we trust you now?" Ligur's chameleon stared judgingly at Crowley with both of its independently moving eyes. "Why shouldn't we just retire you and task someone more competant?"

"Well," Crowley scratched his chin. "I can't imagine you want to explain to our Lord who tasked such an incompetant demon with delivering his son, do you?"

Both dukes glared silently at him.

"Just... leave it to me. Save us both paperwork and punishment," he reasoned. "Come on. We're both working for the same goal here! I want that kid found just as much as you lot."

He gave Hastur and Ligur a moment to mull it over. The two looked at one another silently, before Hastur turned his black eyes back to Crowley. "You find that child, Crowley. Soon. Or you'll have more than your job to worry about when next we see each other."

Crowley breathed a small sigh of relief, able to smile again. "Where do I sign, then?"

"Think it's best we keep this... off the record," Ligur mumbled. "For now."

Hastur led the way back out the door. "We have eleven years before the world's end, Crowley." He called behind his shoulder. "Disappoint us again, and there will be Hell to pay. They've gotten a lot more creative with punishments since that Spanish Inquisition, you know."

"Leave it to me!" The door slammed shut, their departure leaving behind the stench of brimstone and a ringing silence. The moment he was alone, Crowley slumped shakily into his chair.

"Fuck."

=====

Six thousand years, Aziraphale had been on earth, and never had he met another creature in God's creation that could be so small, yet create such noise.

"Now, now, it's not that bad," he tried to soothe the wailing infant in his arms. It had awoken just an hour ago, crying for what Aziraphale assumed was food. He offered it a bottle he'd miracled up, which it drank heartily, and blessed silence had returned for a time. But now, with its midnight (or now, closer to 4am) snack done, it was crying louder than ever.

Aziraphale rocked the child in his arms. His usual warm grace did nothing to pacify the baby, and he was at his wit's end. He'd tried calling Crowley on the mobile phone number he'd given him for emergencies, but found it wasn't working for some strange reason. His home phone went unanswered, except for that voice mail thing he'd had installed.

"How do humans do this," Aziraphale dismayed. "Surely the act of making these creatures isn't worth all this _fuss_." He was ten seconds away from performing a miracle to silence the screams, before he turned to find Crowley, standing in doorway of the back room.

"Oh! There you are. Crowley, you said he would sleep! I can't for the life of me make him stop. I've fed him, changed him, I can't--" Crowley was already walking over, lifting the babe from Aziraphale's arms with a gentleness the angel rarely saw from him, and propping it up against his shoulder. A few firm pats on the back, and the baby let out an impressive belch. His sobs pattered out into whimpers, and then finally blessed, blessed silence.

"Oh..." Aziraphale sighed. "I really am dreadful with children, aren't I?" He smiled wanly, but it faded as he took in Crowley's expression. "Did it not go well?"

Crowley was silent a moment longer, his large hand rubbing soothingly at the back of the tiny body he held to him. Finally, he looked up. "Alcohol. We're gonna need alcohol."

Aziraphale nodded, wringing his hands. "Right... I think I have something drinkable I can uncork, yes."

"And..." Crowley set the baby down in his box. "We need to talk."

"... Oh dear."


End file.
